It does look awesome, and obviously the science is rock-solid...but I'm sorry. I don't care if it's the single most perfect, orgasmic, indulgently over-the-top piece of meat in the universe - I am NOT spending twelve hours and a few hundred bucks just to cook a goddamned steak.

MaxxLarge:It does look awesome, and obviously the science is rock-solid...but I'm sorry. I don't care if it's the single most perfect, orgasmic, indulgently over-the-top piece of meat in the universe - I am NOT spending twelve hours and a few hundred bucks just to cook a goddamned steak.

Kind of like how I feel about America's Test Kitchen. If you follow their recipes faithfully you will make some of the best meals you've ever had..... but you'll need to order a pizza because it's going to take so farking long to cook. They can turn some of the simplest dishes in to 3 hour long ordeals.... Damn tasty stuff though. They really know what they're doing.

Shazam999:Anyhow at 130F for 12 hours you'd have killed all the buggers.

Dude, I can think of mammals that don't die at 130F for 12 hours. As far as bacteria go, you're not killing squat.

There are two reasons why rare steak is safe to eat. One, as others have mentioned, most of the bacteria and contamination is on the outside that is seared at very high temperatures. Two, most bacteria is benign. When you get food poisoning, it's often because the food was left out AND mishandled. For example, E. coli lives in only one place -- in the lower intestines of mammals. You shouldn't get E. coli infection from a steak if you left it out on the kitchen counter for a year and ate it raw. The only way E. coli gets on the meat is if the meat is contaminated with shiat. When some burger joints in my home state some years back got in trouble because of E. coli infections, what the media very carefully avoided mentioning was that the infections were proof that the customers were literally eating shiat. Now all fast food joints thoroughly cook beef -- because all fast food beef is contaminated with shiat. A properly prepared steak from a healthy cow can be eaten raw. You shouldn't get food poisoning, though you might get tapeworms.

Put hickory chips in waterPour drinkTurn Reds game on beat-ass clock radio out on the deckPour Kingsford into beat-ass grillStart fireChop taters, put in beat-ass square pan with oil and spices, cover with foilPour another drinkPut taters on grillAfter ten minutes, push taters asideDrain water from wood chipsPour another drinkCuss VottoDump wood chips on grillCook meatPour another drinkEAT

Option 'B': Go to local butcher, get decent cut of quality meat for a reasonable cost, cook over some special but not uncommon coals. Done in 30 minutes. Grade "95"

Option 'C' : Track down some samurai butcher who only kills two cows a year, buy one steak (because thats all i can afford), age it for 60 days in a mini-fridge and a fan that i had to go out and buy , order a $350 sous machine, cook it for 6 hours in there, then get a skillet, a torch, some 'aromatics', dirty and clean sixteen dishes. Done in 61 days minutes. Grade "100"

Yeah, its worth is a bit more and go Option B, but to get that bump up to a 100-point score, well, there are better things to do with your time. The time and effort can be spent just going to a high-end steak house and get them to make you a steak of the quality you are trying to make yourself, and you get it in 20 minutes.

also: use a meat thermometer. all ovens are different. all cuts of meat are different. time means nothing. doneness is temperature.also: let it rest for 10 minutes

this is how i do it:

heat oven to 400ºstart with USDA prime ribeye (costco)season w/kosher salt and ground pepperbring to room tempbring iron skillet up to temp over a high or med/high flameadd a few drops of canola oil to pan, let spreadadd a pat of butter (better yet, herb butter) to the panpat your steaks dry (this is important!)sear them on the first side for three minutes or until they're deep brownturn them over and sear the other side for two minsinsert leave-in meat thermometer into the middle of one of the steaks, set it for 110ºput skillet in the oven and cook until the target temp is reached (give or take 8 mins, depending on oven, altitude, and thickness of steaks)when temp is reached, remove from oven and set steaks aside to restreturn skillet to high heat (careful - it will be hot as a mother*cker)deglaze the pan with a 1/4 cup of brandy (or bourbon), scraping up the brown bits as you goadd 1/2 or 3/4 cup of veal stock (or beef stock, if veal isn't available)cook on high until reduced to a sauce consistencyturn off burner and add a tbsp of heavy cream (optional: add a teaspoon of dijon mustard)pour over steaks.eat, preferably with roast brussels sprouts or asparagus and a nice hearty cabernet.achieve orgasm.

meat0918:But what if you like a well done steak? This might be the worst possible steak ever then.

Then you should be executed for crimes against humanity. People who take their steaks well done are worse than vegetarians: the latter are annoying douchebags, but they're not wasting good food that the rest of us could be eating.

God! I hate these foodies. They've taken a simple think like eating and tried to make it better. It's just food! What's the difference.

It reminds me of these people that I like to call "sexies". They're always trying to have sex with attractive women, but there's no difference between that and jerking off to the bra section in the Sears catalog. They don't impress me. I've got a Sears catalog. Who needs anything better than that?

TofuTheAlmighty:The best method to cook a steak without resorting to a water bath:1) Allow steak to warm to room temp.2) Preheat your cast iron skillet in 500 degree oven 15 minutes.3) Salt and pepper your steak. Kosher and fresh-cracked is best. (Don't salt it more than 10 minutes before you start cooking it, though, otherwise the meat will be toughened by the salt drawing out moisture.)4) Cook steak in oven (in glassware), time dependent on how raw you like it. 5 minutes will probably do you for med rare.5) Put skillet over high heat, get oil smoking (I prefer peanut, it has a high smoke point) then sear your steak. Flip every 10-15 seconds. Searing should take about 2-3 minutes total.6) Let steak rest 3-5 minutes.I prefer my steaks blue so I forego any oven cooking. And rely solely on the skillet

Agree on the room temp, but disagree on the timing of salting. Getting the steak up to room temperature cuts about 1/3 of the temperature rise you need(70-130 instead of 40-130) which greatly speeds the cooking of the inside resulting in a more even doneness. But you actually achieve a lot by presalting. There is a window where it's not good (anything under an hour but over ~5 minutes) but otherwise if you salt early you allow for the salt to permeate the steak and tenderize it as well. I tend to do about a day, but I've heard of people doing 3-4. After the salt initially draws out moisture, it then gets reabsorbed and starts to break down some of the muscle fibers. The result is a more tender steak that is seasoned all the way through instead of just the outside.

Lately I've been cooking chuck steaks which are pretty cheap but can be tough. They are flavorful though because they come from a well used muscle, so after a day presalting they cook up to have a nice beefy flavor and are about the toughness of a NY strip.

FacelessDevil30:Subby here, and I agree, other than overcooking it, it's pretty farking difficult to seriously screw up a steak. Hell, if John Madden can come up with a good steak recipe, then I have hope for anyone who doesn't think shoe leather is the proper desired texture for your food.

That said, it's the combination of all of this that just looks like a helluva way to make it happen, from the at-home dry-aging of the meat to using a blowtorch in the kitchen. The only way this ends both badly and without being the subject of a future fark article is if you somehow screw up the sous vide process so badly that you die of food poisoning. Any other way ends up with either a delicious fine-dining steakhouse dinner, or by a house fire started by a blowtorch explosion.

also: use a meat thermometer. all ovens are different. all cuts of meat are different. time means nothing. doneness is temperature.also: let it rest for 10 minutes

this is how i do it:

heat oven to 400ºstart with USDA prime ribeye (costco)season w/kosher salt and ground pepperbring to room tempbring iron skillet up to temp over a high or med/high flameadd a few drops of canola oil to pan, let spreadadd a pat of butter (better yet, herb butter) to the panpat your steaks dry (this is important!)sear them on the first side for three minutes or until they're deep brownturn them over and sear the other side for two minsinsert leave-in meat thermometer into the middle of one of the steaks, set it for 110ºput skillet in the oven and cook until the target temp is reached (give or take 8 mins, depending on oven, altitude, and thickness of steaks)when temp is reached, remove from oven and set steaks aside to restreturn skillet to high heat (careful - it will be hot as a mother*cker)deglaze the pan with a 1/4 cup of brandy (or bourbon), scraping up the brown bits as you goadd 1/2 or 3/4 cup of veal stock (or beef stock, if veal isn't available)cook on high until reduced to a sauce consistencyturn off burner and add a tbsp of heavy cream (optional: add a teaspoon of dijon mustard)pour over steaks.eat, preferably with roast brussels sprouts or asparagus and a nice hearty cabernet.achieve orgasm.

That is my method except i let the temp get to 118 before i remove from the oven and I don't bother with the extra calories i'd get from the deglazing butYUM.